The 512bit bus will be better but only if there is enough bandwidth to utilise it, many say that rarely does more than 256bit of bandwidth get used or is required, a handy comparison is if you look at the 1950XT/XTX (512), they were faster cards than the 7900GTX (256) in many benches but I am willing to bet it was not the 512bit bus that was the reason why, better architecture....higher core speeds and so forth were the main reasons.

Well TBH I would wait till they are both out and tested, I think both will be very good value, as per performance......I am not totally convinced that a 2900Pro will match a 2900XT overclocked, but then what do you expect for the money? at this time I would guess that the 2950 is probably going to be the better but none of us really knows till they are both here.

Antec NeoHe 550-manufactured by seasonic -replacement to the discontinued smart power series

Software:

Windows XP pro SP2 -- vista is still crap

i agree with tatty, the bus may be wider, but it needs to be fully utilized too. ati/amd has always had better architecture, and the ati clocks are better. the 2900xt is suppossed to be theretically faster due to specs but its got something wrong with its shaders and stuff so assuming that ati has fixed this problem. the 2950 is good to go.

look at it this way the stock 128bit 7600GT can keep up with the stock 256bit 7800GS, but once you vmod both the difference is startling 700mhz core clock on the 7800GS out does the 770mhz core you can get on a 7600GT

(...) the 2900xt is suppossed to be theretically faster due to specs but its got something wrong with its shaders and stuff

Click to expand...

Not exactly.
The bulk (256) of those 320 stream processors in R600 are too simple to be used in majority of pixel shading operations, infact saying there's 320 shaders is technically incorrect. There's 64 packs of simple stream processor with 4 simple execution units and 1 more complex unit in each.

R600 "shaders" are far from being comparable to those in G80 or former GPUs from ATi.

so assuming that ati has fixed this problem. the 2950 is good to go.

Click to expand...

RV670 shares the same basic architecture with R600 so don't expect significant clock-2-clock improvements nor better or more efficient AA...
It seems the thing AMD fixed was the power consumption and the expensive PCB.

Not exactly.
The bulk (256) of those 320 stream processors in R600 are too simple to be used in majority of pixel shading operations, infact saying there's 320 shaders is technically incorrect. There's 64 packs of simple stream processor with 4 simple execution units and 1 more complex unit in each.

R600 "shaders" are far from being comparable to those in G80 or former GPUs from ATi. RV670 shares the same basic architecture with R600 so don't expect significant clock-2-clock improvements nor better or more efficient AA...
It seems the thing AMD fixed was the power consumption and the expensive PCB.

Click to expand...

i was close enough. theoretically by the specs it should be kicking g80, but seeing that the stream proc problem is there thats what held the 2900xt back, i'm hoping that ati/amd have corrected this.